Ed Sheeran missed grandmother’s funeral due to court case

While promoting his new album ‘Subtract’, singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran admitted that he had to miss his grandmother’s funeral in Ireland while he was in New York fighting a copyright case in court. The trial lasted two weeks.

Sheeran expressed his disappointment on SiriusXM’s ‘The Morning Mash Up’.

“It’s not that they wouldn’t let me go,” Sheeran explained. “It’s just like, weirdly enough, she passed away the first day of court and I remember in my head being like, ‘Well, of course that would happen today of all days.’

“I thought the case would end sooner. I thought it would end by Monday or Tuesday and I would be able to get a flight, but sadly I missed it by a day which is a big shame because I have a very large Catholic family and it just would’ve meant a lot to be there.

“But she was such a tenacious woman that I think that she was in the court with me, basically.”

The copyright infringement case

Sheeran was on trial after he was accused of copying chord progressions from Marvin Gaye’s 1973 song ‘Let’s Get It On’ and using them in his 2014 hit ‘Thinking Out Loud’.

Eventually, the jury decided that Sheeran did not infringe copyright.

After winning the case, Sheeran expressed his joy to reporters waiting outside the courthouse.

“I’m obviously very happy with the outcome of the case, and it looks like I’m not having to retire from my day job after all,” he said.

“But at the same time I’m unbelievably frustrated that baseless claims like this are allowed to go to court at all.

“We’ve spent the last eight years talking about two songs with dramatically different lyrics, melodies, and four chords which are also different and used by songwriters every day all over the world.”